Show Contact Linking fields in Outlook 2013

Outlook has a neat feature called Contact Linking that allows you to link a contact with any appointment, task, other contacts, or even email. Prior to Outlook 2007, the forms had a field with a Contacts button. In Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010 you needed to go into Contact Options and enable a setting to see the Contact Linking field. In Outlook 2013, this option is gone. You can still link Contacts in File, Properties (or Options dialog) of an open item but that is an extra step.

Fortunately, there is a way to enable the Contact Linking field: edit the registry.

Type Windows key + R to open the Run command then type regedit and press Enter.

Browse to the preferences key, right click on it and choose New > DWORD. Type or paste showcontactfieldobsolete and set the value to 1 to show the Contact linking field. Set it to 0 or delete the DWORD or to turn it off.

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About Diane Poremsky

A Microsoft Outlook Most Valuable Professional (MVP) since 1999, Diane is the author of several books, including Outlook 2013 Absolute Beginners Book. She also created video training CDs and online training classes for Microsoft Outlook. You can find her helping people online in Outlook Forums as well as in the Microsoft Answers and TechNet forums.

BTW, do you have an answer to the BCM mess they have? I have a massive BCM 2007 database and my BCM 2013 just can't import it....I read the KB 2793723 but I am extremely confused:
"Important If you are using Business Contact Manager for Outlook 2007, you must download the full installation from the links below. There is no upgrade path for a Business Contact Manager V3 database to a Business Contact Manager V4c database."

So, do I need to download the 368.7MB, uninstall my BCM 2007, reinstall this thing and then what??!?!!??

You do need to download the full 368 size file. I didn't test the upgrade scenario yet (I lost all of my virtual test machines in a hard drive failure :( ) but I would run the upgrade file and see if it tells you to uninstall 2007 first or if it will uninstall it for you. I'll try and get the upgrade scenario tested today.

I can see the "Contacts..." field when I create a new contact, but once the contact is saved with some text in the "Notes" it gets hidden behind the bottom bar where the icon image of the user is put, together with other -social- information. I have no scroll bar to move it in a place where I can reach the field. Help?

Sounds like you either have a smaller screen or use low resolution/larger fonts. Do you have the People pane minimized? (double click on the bar to the left of the small images on the right or use the caret icon to minimize it.) If it's minimized, you can turn off the People Pane from the View tab.

Minimised the People Pane as suggested. Could not find the View tab, but while searching discovered that the issue disappears if I maximise the window: then the "contacts..." field becomes visible. Thank you for your help

Thanks for the info. I have been using 2007 b/c I could never get 2010 to do what I need. I have to be able to open my contact, add appointment (or task), then set the date time. Then I need to go the the calendar (or tasks) to open the appointment...and be able to click on the contact that it is for....which brings up that customers info. This would never work on 2010, even with the linking enabled. Do you think it will work on 2013? Thanks so much.

It drives me nuts that I can't use the latest version for this reason. I just can't understand why I am the only one that ever used this feature. So there is no way to get someone to modify the program? If there was, I would certainly pay for that patch. Thanks so much

No, sorry, it cant' be patched and no, you aren't the only person that uses it, although it doesn't get a lot of use. Contact linking is being removed from future versions of outlook. It's in 2013 for backwards compatibility. It's being replaced by the social connector, which is better in some ways, worse in most ways for things like this. :(

Hi Diane and thanks for solving one of Outlook's more annoying problems.

I have contacts saved in different folders (one for contacts, one for companies) and I'm wondering if you know a way to change the default folder the "Contacts" button searches. That is, have it default to the folder called Accounts rather than the folder called Contacts.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean, but if you mean you want the Accounts folder selected when you click the contacts navigation pane, you can use a macro to set the default folder. See Always open Contacts to a specific contacts folder for a code sample.

Thank you Diane! With this field missing when setting an appointment the contact name would not sync to my phone which in turn I could not access the contacts record with phone number. What good is an appointment if you don't now who its with!! The useful things Microsoft is stripping out of outlook is driving me crazy I was a heavy user of the Journal feature in Outlook which is GONE. I logged all my calls with clients along with other activates connected with them. Is there a fix for this or an add-on to outlook to accomplish this?

You can turn the field back on it Outlook but because the underlying linking was removed, it may not work. I'm not aware of any addins that will help with this if enabling the linking fields doesn't help.

If you just need to see the contact name & details, you could use a macro to add it to the appointment body.

Thank you for providing this info and all the other feedback on all things Outlook. We all appreciate it.

It frustrates me to no end the way Microsoft's Outlook developers seem to constantly to edit out features that many of us love. WHY, WHY, WHY.

You seem to know Microsoft well. How can any one get through to them? What can users do? It seems as if they are totally isolated and have no empathy to users who want just a little control over their Outlook experience.

Do you have any advice on how to get through to these decision makers at Microsoft. There has got to be a way to get their attention.

Thanks to you or anyone who can provide any advice or insight.

PS - It seems that Microsoft only seems to listen when they screw things up bad enough that I.T. professionals refuse to endorse new systems. That's what happened with Windows 8.0 and led to 8.1 -- Microsoft got out there and listened. I sure wish they'd do that with Outlook. I guess I'm a little concerned about the next version of Outlook. I guess we will see...

Hey, I like Win8 and hate the changes in Win8.1. :) My secret was learning the Windows key is my friend. Once that stuck in my head, it was much better.

I don't think they lack empathy, but they do change programmers every couple of years, and product managers usually only stay for one version - so often the guy who wrote the feature and knows about it, moves on and the new guys don't know the features, and writing new code is easier than reading old code. They have some younger guys there now who had no idea what Journal is.

Thanks for your response. What you say, I've heard before and it does make sense.

What you describe -- the change in programmers who don't know the significance of the previous programmed features -- is a problem for end users. As you say, those programmers are there for a version, maybe two. Outlook users are usually a little bit more long-lived; what's a good guess, maybe 3-5 versions? Also, the customers pay for the software. In my case, I have about 70 Outlook/Office 365 users to manage. Some users express dissatisfaction with the changes with a huff, but what can they really do? Nothing. They'll say, "Do we really have to go with the newer version?" So I get to deal with and teach these end users how to deal with unwanted changes and loss of control of obscure, but cool features that a developer deemed "obsolete." Hmmm... Yep, some changes are inevitable, but some changes they make really do leave end users scratching their heads asking, "Really? Is it that difficult to leave a cool, but obscure feature or option in place?

In regard to the Win8.0 vs 8.1 event, my point in the previous post is better made in the Wall Street Journal story titled "The Morning Download: Microsoft Says CIOs Helped Fix Windows 8" dated October 24, 2013. The article explains the influence IT people had with Microsoft because Microsoft reached out to them. It is a very good article.

In the end, Microsoft needs to try harder to listen more closely to both the end users and the people who support the end users -- both on the operating systems and on the applications such as Outlook. I'm not sure how that happens, but they really need to examine this. I hope they do.

OK, how about the opposite problem. I would like to look at a contact file and find the appointments, if any, for that contact. Usually if I look at an appointment it tells me the contact; but I want to look at the contact and see any linked appointment, No comment on the "improvements" made by MS. Thanks

I am sure MS does everything by email, therefore has meetings, many of us make arrangements by phone and don't clutter inboxes with extraneous emails. I want to look at a contact file and mind "appointments". I will return to using my previous contact manager and strongly recommend against anyone using Outlook 2013. Thanks

Thank you so much for this, my whole contacts and sales routine was based around this link on Outllook 2010 and I am really not capable of messing around with the registry, so your download was absolutely brilliant.
Thanks again for saving me so much trouble.